Heritage Mourns Loss of Whitney Ball and Peter Schramm

About the Author

It is a day of deep mourning at the Heritage Foundation. America has lost two dedicated patriots, and the Liberty Movement has lost two of its great visionary builders.

It’s hard to think of an institution within the movement that hasn’t benefited directly from Whitney Ball’s leadership and her entrepreneurial enterprise. Starting with her first job at the National Journalism Center (where she rose to became director of finance for its parent Education and Research Institute) then moving on to serving as development director at Cato, as Executive Director at the Philanthropy Roundtable and finally as president and CEO of DonorsTrust, she strengthened existing infrastructure and built new institutions that have been absolutely critical to the success of the Liberty Movement.

And all that she built, she built not just to last long into the future, but to be certain of remaining true to its purpose throughout the years. Her insistence on honoring donor intent has taken root at Heritage and other conservative nonprofits and enabled her to build DonorsTrust into the world’s largest donor-advised fund dedicated to helping pro-liberty charities promote the principles of limited government, personal responsibility and free enterprise.

For the last three decades, Peter Schramm concentrated largely on but one task: building Ashland University’s Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs into a leading academic forum for the study of American constitutional government and political thought. Sure, he worked to advance freedom in other ways—for example, he served a wonderfully successful tour of duty as president of the Philadelphia Society. But his passion always was in developing the minds of America’s youth. And under his leadership, the Ashbrook Center enlightened not just thousands of undergraduates; it launched a graduate program that has prepared thousands of high-school teachers to pass along the principles of our nation’s founding to the next generation of Americans. Heritage was pleased to honor him with our Henry Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship in 2006.

Dr. Schramm loved this country with the fervor of one who knows what it’s like to live under crushing oppression—as he did from his childhood in Communist Hungary. It is why he became a mainstay of this country’s freedom movement. We will ever remember and honor him and his fellow freedom-fighter, Whitney Ball, for all they have done to keep America that “shining city on the hill” for all peoples.